1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments relate to rejection of unwanted speech advertising.
2. Background of the Related Art
To an increasing degree Internet telephone subscribers or their end devices such as personal computers are being confronted with unwanted telephone advertising or speech advertising, also known in professional circles as SPIT (SPam over Internet Telephony). The unwanted speech advertising is being carried out by automatic calling units, which are used to transmit unwanted messages randomly or purposefully via VoIP (Voice over IP) techniques to telephone subscribers in an attempt to sell merchandise or services to the called telephone subscriber via stored, predetermined speech information or to induce the called telephone subscriber to make an expensive callback to a premium service.
One possibility for protecting oneself to some extent from unwanted speech advertising is using a list known in professional circles as the “Robinson List.” Telephone subscribers can arrange to be registered on the Robinson List maintained by the German Direct Marketing Association in order to keep advertising companies belonging to the association from sending the registered telephone subscribers any telephone advertising or advertising via fax or e-mail. However, it must be noted that the use of these lists by advertising companies is voluntary and not all advertising companies are members of the association. In addition, this Robinson List is only in effect in Germany, i.e., it cannot prevent telephone advertising originating from another country.
A further possibility for preventing unwanted advertising is looping an answering machine into every incoming call. The disadvantage of this method is the unnecessary allocation of resources (trunk lines, storage space) by the party being called. In addition, the caller possibly achieves his objective of a time-delayed callback.
An additional possibility is providing a whitelist and a blacklist with identifiers or call numbers, from which unwanted advertising or speech advertising is or is not to be expected. The identifier of the caller for an incoming call is compared with the identifiers in the lists. If, for a call, the identifier of the caller is not contained in the lists, the call is directed to call handling, where a check is performed to see whether advertising is being received. The lists are correspondingly updated based on the result of the check.